Ireland’s Clare Island as multimodal rural telehealth and telemonitoring testbed

June 30, 2023 | by

A ‘feel-good’ story figuratively and literally. Clare Island is an island off the west Irish coast in the Atlantic. It is located at the entrance to Clew Bay, part of County Mayo, with a lighthouse and abbey ruins that are tourist attractions. Its connection to the mainland is a 20-minute ferry service to Louisburgh on the mainland, generally adequate for its 138 people scattered in its 5 x 3-mile terrain. Galway, the largest city in the area, is nearly two hours south, and Westport is four hours. This makes it difficult when islanders need healthcare beyond their single small medical clinic with two resident nurses and weekly visiting GP.

The islanders are now part of a Digital Health Project designed by the University of Galway that can best be described as multimodal. The university’s Health Innovation via Engineering (HIVE) laboratory has been working on rural health projects at least since 2019 since the HIVE lab delivered via drone insulin from Galway to Inis Mór in the Aran Islands. On Clare Island, the HIVE lab has worked with islanders to connect them to better healthcare access on and off island, and also with each other.

  • Enabling video consultations with remote physiological monitoring, including blood pressure, weight, and blood glucose. This connects to clinics on the mainland, freeing up local clinic time. Irish company MyPatientSpace provides the platform.
  • The RPM for islanders is augmented by an artificial intelligence algorithm that allocates clinic slots if data readings for blood pressure or glucose readings indicate the need for an in-person clinic visit.
  • A recent demonstration showed how a drone could deliver an epipen to the local clinic, while MADRA the robot (Medical Autonomous Droid Remote Assistance–above left) scaled mountainous terrain to deliver first aid.

A private 5G wireless system was installed to facilitate video and RPM, as well as to connect a number of isolated islanders and their families on the mainland with always-on video, primarily to counter loneliness. Withings has also equipped islanders with Pulse HR watches. These enable self-monitoring both via the watch and through a supplied tablet. Over 80 islanders, aged from 18 to 90, have already signed up to the project, which began in September 2022.

The project is funded through a public-private partnership led by technology company Cisco and Cúram (Merative) software, the Science Foundation of Ireland Research Centre for Medical Devices at the University of Galway, in partnership with Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE).  The €1 million remote health project is intended to be a template for other rural areas in Ireland. The head of the project is Professor Derek O’Keefe, a physicianeer (physician and engineer) with resident Dr. Ian McCabe as project manager. His grandmother moved to Clare Island in 1939 as an operator connecting the island to the mainland via radioed Morse Code. Irish Times, RTÉ, University of Galway news archive (2022), EuroPMC paper 

Photo credit: Kevin Johnson/Clare Island Home Health Project. ‘Madra’ the robot (center). Jack Pinder (Public Patient Involvement), Dr Jennifer Doran (Project Physician), Dr. Ian McCabe (Project Manager), Prof. Derek O Keeffe (Project Lead), and Hemendra Worlikar (Project Engineer) 

News roundup: The state of Finland’s health tech, American Well-Cisco team for TV consults, Tech for Quality Care in Manchester 9 July

June 20, 2019 | by

Finland shows its sisu in health tech startups. It’s a country you wouldn’t think of readily as hospitable to startups, but they’ve leveraged their tech skills (think the pivots that Nokia has accomplished) to create patient outcome and remote patient monitoring companies that are making an impact in Europe. Some which are making an impact are Meru, Kaiku, and Navigil. Venture capital is ‘thinnish’ which leads to companies seeking seed and development funding from government sources and later on, foreign investors. Mobihealthnews is profiling these companies in conjunction with Business Finland, a government entity. HIMSS and Health 2.0 also had their European conference in Helsinki, and this article discusses how their national health service, Kanta Services, leverages digital health in e-prescribing, they have a national database called the Patient Data Repository that collect patient data records to make them accessible to providers and patients, and the My Kanta patient portal.

Back to the 1990s? Tech device maker Cisco is teaming up with American Well to convert TVs to a video portal via a set-top unit. This is targeted to older adults and those with multiple chronic conditions who may not be comfortable with laptops, tablets, or smartphones, but wouldn’t mind using their TV to connect to a doctor. How it work seems to require a ‘smart TV’–the patient would activate the device on the TV, connect it to Wi-Fi, and initiate the video consult with the doctor and caregiver. No information on timing, markets, or pricing at this time. CNBC. Why does this sound like a klutzy non-starter to this Editor, who went through the fad of interactive TV in the Mad ’90s? It seems to need more than just consults.  Mobihealthnews notes that Quil Health, a Comcast-Independence Blue Cross joint venture, is targeting pre- and post-care support through the TV. Comcast is also rumored to be working on an Alexa-like ambient sensor based device to monitor basic vital signs and fall detection.

Using Technology for Quality Care on 9 July is a free half-day conference/workshop at Kings House Conference Centre, Manchester. It is the first of a series of regional workshops in the North West region to learn from local areas where councils, care providers, and suppliers work together using technology to support care. More information is on this PDF and on the Local Government Association website. Hat tip to Reader Adrian Scaife who just recently joined Alcuris Ltd. as Business Development Manager.

News roundup: First Stop, GlobalMed, American Well, Avizia, Medicity, Health Catalyst, Allscripts, Welbeing, BenevolentAI

May 9, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]Announcements and acquisitions have been multiplying–here’s what’s most interesting.

In companies we’ve recently written about:

Our recent Contributor Bruce Judson, now with corporate telemedicine provider First Stop Health, wrote us enroute to the Government Finance Officials Association conference in St. Louis that FSH achieved triple-digit top-line revenue growth and also achieved an average utilization rate of 52 percent. The formal announcement was made earlier this week at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas (release), where another one of our Contributors, Sarianne Gruber, is attending for Answers Media Company.

GlobalMed, a prior contributor to Perspectives, is offering a lower cost telemedicine alternative to practices with a flat fee starting at $799 per month for three years. Startup costs remain at about $5,000. The starting kit includes a cart, a total exam camera, stethoscope and vitals linked to the organization’s network, and a nurse license. Additional compatible equipment is available at extra cost. We know that a number of comparable telemedicine cart-based kits run upwards of $8,000. It is one of the first public acknowledgments this Editor has seen (but has known for years) that high cost is a major impediment for implementing both telehealth and telemedicine in practices. Health Data Management.

In other news:

Telemedicine and telehealth consolidation continues with American Well’s acquisition of hospital-based telemed/workflow systems provider Avizia. Avizia has a product line of telemedicine carts and workflow software for 40 different specialties, including telestroke and telebehavioral health. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Prior investors in this 2013 Cisco spinoff include Northwell Health, NY-Presbyterian, HealthQuest, and other providers in seven rounds totaling over $23 million. Healthcare IT News

A further sign of consolidation, this time in the crowded health information business, is the Medicity acquisition by Health Catalyst. Health Catalyst is primarily a data analytics and warehousing company while Medicity focuses more on data interoperability and patient engagement for practices, health systems, and HIEs. Medicity was purchased by Aetna in 2011 with much fanfare for $500 million as one of its ‘Emerging Businesses’, rebranded as Healthagen in 2013 [TTA 28 Feb 14] which never quite took off. Out of that unit, what remains are Active Health Solutions and Aetna Accountable Care Solutions, a payer-driven value-based care management company. The amount of the sale was not disclosed but is expected to close in 90 days. Health Catalyst’s CEO Brent Dover served as president of Medicity up to 2013, and both companies are located in Salt Lake City. What is interesting about this sale is that CVS, which is buying Aetna, has no comparable in-house technology. It’s a probable shedding of peripheral or money-losing businesses prior to sale.  HISTalk, MedCityNews

Allscripts continues on its acquisition binge with patient communication and engagement platform HealthGrid. HealthGrid is a mobile app platform that delivers care and education materials traditionally distributed from practices to patients via paper. In January, Allscripts bought practice EHR Practice Fusion for $100 million (a loss to investors) and earlier McKesson’s HIT business for $185 million. It’s a noticeable shift to value-added care tools for this formerly EHR-centric company. Mobihealthnews. 

In UK news:

Welbeing has won Norwich City Council’s Norwich Community Alarm Service (NCAS). It provides a 24-hour, year-round monitoring and response service for over 6,500 adults who are vulnerable or at risk in this part of East Anglia. The press release is on UK Telehealthcare‘s news page. 

BenevolentAI, a UK company using artificial intelligence for drug development, raised $115 million in new funding, mostly from undisclosed investors in the United States, according to Mobihealthnews, for a total funding of over $200 million. The company uses AI to reduce drug discovery time and risk. It does not do its own drug discovery but sells the intellectual property discovered by their AI algorithms, claiming to cut drug development timelines by four years and improve efficiencies by 60 percent compared to pharma industry averages.

HIMSS’ last full day highlights company partnerships

April 15, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/himss_chicago_2015-588×337.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]It’s almost time to Say Goodbye to Sinatra’s ‘My Kind of Town’, but there’s still news: Samsung+Partners Healthcare, IMS Health, AliveCor, Interoperability≠Humana, Panasonic+Cisco

  • Samsung and Partners HealthCare announced a direct-to-mobile partnership to develop chronic care management mobile software that monitors vital signs such as blood pressure, blood glucose and weight, as well as delivers mobile patient engagement, medication adherence and wellness self-management. Clinical trial is scheduled for June. Partners has always been a pioneer in the mHealth area, but playing with Samsung, Partners is flying at a slightly higher level than with Wellocracy and certainly the late Healthrageous. Partners release, Mobihealthnews (more…)

Brief report on the European Telemedicine Conference, Edinburgh 29-30 October 2013

November 1, 2013 | by

The European Telemedicine Conference held in Edinburgh’s historic Assembly Rooms this week exceeded my expectations in many ways.

A vital requirement of all such events is good networking, which Edinburgh promoted most effectively. There was plenty of break time and lots of opportunity to see and meet people. There was a goodly number of stands too, where like-minded people could coalesce. For some there were personalised itineraries that helped as well. Then on the second day, a very deliberate effort was made (more…)